Chapter 6 - THE HOUSE BENEATH THE HOUSE
Daniel ignored the address sent to Sarah’s phone.
Instead, he drove toward an abandoned church outside White Plains.
Sarah looked at the navigation screen.
“This isn’t where they told us to go.”
“They expect us to follow instructions.”
“They have my children.”
“They want you to believe that.”
“The call was cut off.”
“Because someone activated a signal jammer.”
“That means someone reached them.”
“It means someone wanted us to panic.”
Sarah turned toward him. “You are asking me to gamble with Noah and Lily.”
“No. I’m asking you to trust the team protecting them.”
“I don’t know your team.”
“You know me.”
“I have known you for twelve days.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“That is eleven days longer than you knew the people who built your life before they began experimenting on you.”
The words struck harder than he intended.
Sarah looked away.
Daniel exhaled.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“You’re right.”
They drove in silence.
The abandoned church stood behind a rusted iron gate. Its windows had been boarded, and weeds covered the path.
Daniel parked behind the building.
A woman with gray hair and a long black coat waited near a cellar entrance.
Sarah recognized her from Noah’s description.
Daniel raised his weapon.
The woman did not move.
“My name is Evelyn Shaw,” she said. “I worked with your father.”
Sarah remained behind the vehicle door.
“You went near my children.”
“To warn them.”
“You gave Lily a tracking device.”
“I gave her the only key capable of opening the lower level.”
“The lower level of what?”
Evelyn looked toward the church.
“The house beneath this house.”
Daniel searched her for weapons before allowing them inside.
The church smelled of dust and wet wood.
Evelyn led them behind the ruined altar and pressed the engraved necklace into a circular mark hidden beneath a brass plate.
A mechanical lock released.
The altar moved several inches.
Stone stairs descended into darkness.
Sarah felt a memory stir.
A silver elevator.
Blue walls.
The smell of oranges.
“This was part of Marrow,” she whispered.
“One of five satellite facilities,” Evelyn said.
“You worked here?”
“I helped design the observation systems.”
“For children?”
Evelyn did not answer.
They entered an underground corridor lined with sealed doors.
Each door bore a designation.
M-Two.
M-Four.
M-Seven.
Sarah stopped.
The M-Seven room contained a narrow bed, a desk, and a wall-sized mirror.
She approached the mirror.
On the other side was an observation chamber.
A microphone rested beside a row of switches.
Daniel opened a metal cabinet.
Inside were hundreds of labeled tapes.
SARAH, AGE 6.
SARAH, AGE 7.
SARAH, AGE 8.
Sarah touched one of the labels.
Her hand shook.
“My father recorded everything.”
“He believed memory could be inherited,” Evelyn said.
“That is impossible.”
“He believed trauma changed the body in ways that could be passed to future children.”
Sarah looked at her.
“So he hurt us to see whether our children would remember?”
Evelyn lowered her eyes.
“The official research used controlled stress.”
“What did the unofficial research use?”
Evelyn’s silence answered.
Daniel searched the adjoining room.
He found a generator, a medical refrigerator, and several empty cryogenic containers.
One slot remained powered.
Its display showed a code.
M7-E2.
“The second embryo,” Sarah said.
Daniel checked the container.
Empty.
A green light blinked beneath the word TRANSFERRED.
“When?” he asked.
Evelyn examined the log.
“Six months ago.”
“The same time Vanessa began fertility treatment,” Sarah said.
Evelyn shook her head.
“No. Vanessa received M7-E1.”
“Then where did E2 go?”
A speaker above them crackled.
A man’s voice filled the corridor.
“Hello, Sarah.”
She froze.
The voice was older than she remembered, but she knew it instantly.
Her father.
Dr. Adrian Marrow.
The man declared dead twenty-four years earlier.
Sarah stepped into the center of the corridor.
“Where are my children?”
“Closer than you think.”
“You sent the photograph?”
“No. Margaret did.”
Daniel looked toward the ceiling camera.
“Trace the signal,” he said into his radio.
Adrian laughed softly.
“You brought Daniel Cross. Elaine always said he was loyal.”
Sarah looked at Daniel.
“You knew Elaine?”
Daniel’s face revealed nothing.
The voice continued.
“You have spent your entire life surrounded by people who knew the truth before you did.”
Sarah stared at Daniel.
“What does he mean?”
Daniel raised his eyes toward the camera.
“Do not listen to him.”
Adrian spoke again.
“Ask Daniel who carried you out of the center.”
Sarah’s heart began pounding.
Daniel’s silence confirmed the answer.
“You were there,” she whispered.
He lowered his weapon.
“Yes.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Who were you?”
Before Daniel could answer, alarms activated throughout the corridor.
Steel doors slammed shut.
Evelyn ran toward the control panel.
“The facility is sealing.”
Sarah heard a mechanical sound beneath the floor.
Not an alarm.
A pump.
Water rushed through hidden pipes.
Daniel grabbed Sarah’s arm.
“We have to move.”
The loudspeaker crackled one final time.
Adrian’s voice was almost gentle.
May you like
“The second child is awake, Sarah.”
Then water burst through the walls.
